


History's Gonna Change

by Draqua



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Beast Wars, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draqua/pseuds/Draqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While out exploring the forest, after some excitement with the Temporal Station, Cody Burns finds himself in the company of a strange beast from somewhere else...</p>
            </blockquote>





	History's Gonna Change

It was a crisp summer night in Griffin Rock.

The moon hung low and golden in the sky while grey clouds cut across the blackness like claws. Cody Burns was happily hiking through the woods in spite of the late hour; the white of his flashlight’s beam dancing between the evergreens.

“Cooodddyyyyy…” whined Frankie’s tinny voice in his communicator from her decidedly less forest-y position back in the Best Left Forgotten Room in the Hall of Inspiration.

“Just give it a rest will you? You’re not going to find anything out there and it’s late.”

Cody merely smiled and continued his scouting of the trees, “Aw, c'mon Frankie. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“It left about three hours ago to go catch a movie at the drive-in, while the rest of me is stuck here, sorting files. Alone. **Again**.” She punctuated each sentence with an increasingly annoyed huff.

“I’m on to something tonight, Frankie. I can feel it.” Cody replied, dropping down to his knees to feel for tracks through the dry grass. Luckily, the months of summer meant that traces of anything running through these woods would go undisturbed for at least a few days. And the peculiar gashes left in the soil, though not fresh, were exactly what he was hoping to find.

Frankie proceeded to grumble under her breath and the sound of shuffled paper crackled through the speaker at Cody’s collar as she resumed her work.

He could also faintly pick-up the distinctive “thuds” of Trex tramping down a corridor nearby, probably dusting.

About five days ago, Doc Greene and the Burns family had rushed to the Best Left Forgotten Room for a seemingly routine response after a fire alarm had gone off. But, as was often the case in good ol'Griffin Rock, what they found was anything but. The deactivated (and slightly smashed, courtesy of Heatwave) Temporal Station seemed to have turned itself on, immediately there-after causing a massive electrical surge, shutting down and burning a good chunk of its storage space along with it.

Still, nothing the Burns family couldn’t handle. But what made this particular case interesting was that while setting Heatwave and Kade to put out the blaze (complete with their own share of grousing about the late hour and ribbing at each other), Cody back at the Command Center received several calls from the scattered residents living on the slope down from the Hall reporting they’d seen “some sort of creature” running away from the fire that night.

It had been described as an animal galloping on two legs. Big, apparently. And also, as one might expect given the circumstances, on fire.

A preliminary scan of the area by Chase and Boulder had indeed uncovered evidence of _something_ fleeing the area. Burnt grass, tracks, shaved bark and yet more scorch marks off trees. But Blades and Dani had been unable to spot anything in an initial air sweep, and after combing the forest for the subsequent two days with nothing uncovered but a run-in with some easily aggravated porcupines, Charlie finally called it off. The fires long since put out, the Doc was still puzzled by their cause, but given the state of the Temporal Station, there was little to be done on the subject, nor much chance of it happening again.

Cody, for his part, was supremely unsatisfied, and had spent the last two, going on three, nights traipsing through the woods in search of whatever had fled the Hall that fiery night. Calls had been few and far between that week, and with the older Burns’ family members happy to socialize with their Autobot partners, it left Cody plenty of time to explore the wonders of nature in secret.

“If whatever’s out there is dangerous…” Frankie popped back on the line, sounding serious this time, “… what do you think your dad would say if he knew you were out, alone I might add, and looking for it?”

“I’m not going to try and fight it or anything! I just want to find it so that Dad and the ‘Bots can deal with it properly.” Cody replied steadily, eyes skimming the thinning tree trunks around him. “Like you said, if it is dangerous, we need to protect the town.”

Frankie sighed, “Yeah, well, I stand by my original theory that it was just some poor bear that got hit by the explosion and ran through the woods in a panic. A case of the porridge being too hot to handle, if you know what I mean.”

Cody passed through another patch of trees and came into a clearing. The sky opened wide around him as he scanned his flashlight over the grass.

“A bear running on two legs in a panic at the speed civilians described? Naw, it just doesn’t add up.” he continued walking through the plain. His sneakers crunched on twigs and the layers of dried grass, parched by the daytime sun. “You know what I think?”

“I already **know** what you think. I know what you think probably before you even think it. Because I’ve known you for so long.” said Frankie, “You think it’s another one of those tall tales out of your books like Big Foot or the Ogopogo or something equally goony, don’t you?”

Cody smirked and the round of his cheeks bumped into his coat’s ruff, “And when I find one, or all of them, they won’t be 'goony’ anymore.”

There was quiet on the line for a few moments before Frankie started again, “I know you’ve been feeling left out lately. Heck, you always have. But this isn’t the way to solve it-”

Cody paused, his flashlight lowered. “Hey, don’t worry about me… I know it’s not like that.”

His friend gave a small laugh, “I know you know. Just be careful out there. Don’t get hurt or anything.”

“Frankie, I’m always very sa-”

The ground beneath Cody’s feet gave way instantly.

Before he could even think, his ankles were sliding down into the rapidly crumbling earth. Knuckles scrapped in a futile effort at the grass and roots around him as his torch whirled away in a somersault of light before vanishing. The sky flew up and away as Cody’s world went black.

***

It certainly wasn’t one of Griffin Rock’s many, many wonderful caves and tunnels, Cody observed to himself minutes later after having risen painfully from where he’d collapsed. His wrists were smarting something awful from bracing himself while his pants were smeared with wet and muck. The dampness of the air was a sharp contrast to the dry night above.

This was a naturally occurring hollow, the dripping water from the loose, earthy walls told him as much. It had been created by underground streams seeping through areas of soil and slowly pulling it away. The field above ground level had no currently living trees to brace the earth, and as such, this had made the excavation all the easier.

Cody also reflected, as he tested his knees and ankles for range of motion, that if he’d been paying attention he might have noticed the dip in the ground and another opening a few steps ahead of him before plummeting. But the damage was done now. He brushed at his knees in a futile attempt to rid them of the grime they’d acquired and took stock of the situation. The pit was a good 16 feet deep and didn’t seem to be much larger than 20 feet around. The walls were stones, dead roots, and earth, all slippery with water. After a few cautious attempts, Cody concluded he lacked the strength to scale them out, not to mention that their crumbling structure made climbing ill advised. Beginning to worry slightly now, he took a few deep, calming breaths and thought to his Lad Pioneer training.

“When you’re stuck out in the wilderness: stay put, don’t injury yourself, and call for help.” he said, overly loudly to himself in an attempt to keep the curling fear and embarrassment at having gotten himself into easily avoidable danger down.

“Okay, call for help…” reaching for the communicator at his jacket, Cody heard a gnashing hiss behind him and realized he was not alone.

The moon shone fully into belly of the pit now, casting light to the darkest corners. There, laying in the earth, was a massive, metal beast. It looked like a the velociraptor from _Jurassic Park_ (a favorite of the 'Bots on movie night) but even larger. It was white, silver, and red; ending all in sharp corners with great squared off legs and a tail. Everything about it screamed 'unnatural’ and 'deadly’, but most startling of all were a pair of massive, glowing red eyes; fixed squarely on him, sitting just above a maw of snarling, steel fangs.

Cody gasped and jumped back against the wet cave wall. The beast growled a warning, head snaking forward, but it made no motion to rise or attack. As Cody calmed, chest pounding, he realized the creature couldn’t move at all. The animal had not been sleeping, nor was this its lair; but its prison. Curled back legs had been skewered in a sickening way by an old growth of roots jutting out of a firmer looking portion of the chamber and it was effectively pinned both down and through. Thus leaving it unable to rise past lifting that horrible, frightful head.

Immobile or not, Cody was wise enough to know this was most certainly not part of the local fauna, and probably something he did not want to be trapped in a cave with, even under the best of circumstances. Still shaking and hissing breath between his teeth, Cody fumbled for his communicator.

“Dad? Frankie? Kade? Somebody please respond!”

The device popped with a small spark of electricity and then fizzled dead under Cody’s fingertips; it had been damaged in the fall.

Genuinely panicking now, Cody kept his eyes firmly on the beast, which in turn, was looking dead center at Cody.

Several minutes passed unchanging in this fashion, with boy and horrifying robot dinosaur engaged in a staring contest with neither party able to leave and one unable to move past the chest area. Eventually, Cody’s exhaustion got the better of him, and he slumped down against the rocks, hands fisted in his hair, as he tried to think of what to do next.

The raptor continued regarding Cody unblinking for a few more minutes, before seeming to grow apathetic, and lay its head back down in the mud. It exhaled in a very aggressive sort of way.

In the calm that followed, Cody was able to look properly at the cave floor, and the rolls of damp ash, not to mention the filth and heat damage licking at the beast’s silver body. It didn’t take Frankie’s impressive scientific genius to work out that this was the animal which fled the blaze all those days ago.

 _'It must have fallen into the original opening of this pit and gotten trapped.’_ Cody reflected.

Occasionally, the beast would attempt to move its lower body or limbs, only to recoup a hiss of pain for its efforts and the pungent smell of mechanical fluids seeping out from the gashes.

After what was apparently a particular painful try, leaving the raptor yowling louder than normal, Cody finally spoke.

“Stop! You’re only going to make those worse.”

At this, surprisingly, the beast raised its head and looked at Cody again. Its eyes were narrowed, and it continued growling subtly, though whether it was from the pain of its injuries or from Cody’s uninvited criticism, he couldn’t say.

“Can… C-can you understand me?” Cody gasped.

The raptor snorted in reply and let itself drop loudly back on the ground, rolling its head to the far wall so that it was no longer looking at the boy. Undeterred, Cody’s eyes traced over the beast’s metal form and the faint glow of circuitry beneath the seams of its body.

He stood, and took a half-step forward. “You can, can’t you?”

His companion remained unmoving, the growling growing dim.

With very little moonlight now entering the cave, Cody found himself in an increasingly oppressive darkness. The red of the beast’s body was becoming the only illumination available. He took another step forward.

“Are… are you a from Cybertron?”

The change in the raptor was instant; lifting its head and turning with great urgency. It tried to roar something out, mouth open and tongue working. The metal of its neck shifted and pulsed. But all that emerged was a gasping cough and a gurgle of choked fluid.

If this creature truly could speak, it certainly couldn’t right now. Something had been damaged or jostled violently loose and nothing resembling words would emerge. This limitation seemed to frustrate Cody’s companion very much so and it pounded its front claws into the earth and roared to the starry heavens in rage before giving up the communication effort.

“W-wait!” Cody gasped, fumbling in the pockets of his coat for his Lad Pioneer utility knife. He paused briefly, weighing his words and the actions carefully. But deep down, he knew his decision had already been made.

“Stop thrashing! I can help you. I can cut you out!”

At the sight of the blade, the beast’s eyes sprang wide like bloody gashes on a fish’s belly. It roared with its jaw unnaturally wide, while clawed feet scrapped furiously in place.

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” Cody gasped, holding his free hand out, palm open hopping it would be interpreted as a peacefully gesture. He kept the knife at his side, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The raptor’s claws slowed their assault on the ground, but it did not let up its growling and teeth gnashing. Its gaze bore fiercely down on Cody, daring him to take a step forward. Even laying prone, immobile, and injured, it was still the deadliest thing facing Cody at the moment barring dehydration.

From above the entrance to the pit, the clouds parted in the navy night sky. The light of the full moon shone down onto the two figures, providing some much needed distinction. The beast momentarily stopped his raging to cast his head upwards ever so slightly to the satellite. Light glimmered off his cracked, white body. Cody breathed slowly with his right hand still outstretched; watching a dinosaur watch the moon.

For a great while, the Cybertronian was still and blessedly calm, looking to the starry heavens, red eyes on the glimmering, pale orb. He seemed to be coming to some sort of personal conclusion, because Cody was certain he could see deep awareness behind those optics, frightening though they were.

Very suddenly, the beast snapped its great head back in Cody’s direction, along with an intensive stare.

Coming to his own decision, Cody extended his free hand further.

“It’s alright…” he said in his best calm and reassuring voice. The kind his father used when rescuing civilians.

“It’s alright…” He repeated, moving his hand just a fraction closer to that massive, metal head. The raptor, seeming aware of Cody’s intentions now, narrowed its eyes and began growling, low and deep, again. Cruel lips hiked up to expose raw fangs. Cody stilled.

“It’s alright, I just want to help you. We’re going to get out of here. Both of us. All I want is to help.”

He kept his hand still but held up his palm flat. The snarling before him was frightening in a primal way. Everything in Cody’s instincts screamed at him to run, but he braced his knees and stayed firm.

“It’s alright…”

Cody looked into those glowing eyes and felt the same intensity the moon and sky must have been feeling a moment ago. Yet again, he got the distinct impression the beast was calculating something of great importance. In an effort to calm himself, Cody shut his eyes for a few seconds, trying to focus on regulating his breathing and slow his heart to something more manageable than the locomotive rate it was running at currently.

There was a sudden cool pressure against the flat of his palm. Cody’s eyes came open and he nearly fell back. The beast had pressed its square, metal snout into the outstretched hand and held it still there. Cody breathed shakily, his fingertips inches away from exposed canines. Red eyes still bore into his skull, but the growling was nearly gone now, and merely survived as a sort of reminder to keep Cody level.

Cody’s eyes danced back and forth from the raptor’s eyes to his own hand, before ever so slightly running his palm up the jaw, away from the teeth. Resting where the nostril holes would likely be on a flesh-and-blood dinosaur.

“That’s it… It’s alright…” he said with more confidence than he felt.

He gently brushed his thumb over the cool, cracked metal. There was dust and grime embedded deep in this creature’s skin, burned and bleached from fire damaged and exposure. The beast itself stayed still as Cody’s hand began to run the full length of the snout, marveling at the texture. Living with the Rescue Bots, Cody was no stranger to the feel of Cybertronian paint, but this sensation was different. The metal of the beast was warped and damaged. Yet for all the cracks and burns, the steely hide showed no sign of buckling or bending, and nearly seemed to hum with power beneath it.

Growing bolder now, Cody leaned forward on the balls of his feet to reach his hand properly up the raptor’s head and feel at the red of the scalp and eyebrow ridges.

Throughout this experience, the beast stayed remarkably immobile. Eyes fixed firmly on Cody’s wondering face rather than the exploring appendage.

“It’s alright…” Cody murmured very quietly now, more to himself than anyone else.

He was struck by a sudden memory of his time with Noble, scratching the loving dog behind the ears, curled up in the Command Center and watching the town go by.

“Good boy…”

At being referred to in such a way, the dinosaur snarled and twisted his neck like a horse, casting Cody’s hand aside and resuming his glowering sulk.

The spell broken and jerking back at the sudden movement, Cody recovered quickly. He was at once frightened by the sudden change in the beast’s mood and embarrassed by the trance he’d fallen into. He quickly looked up into red eyes to have his questioning gaze squarely met, before the dinosaur pointedly looked at the knife into Cody’s left hand, to its mangled legs, and then back.

“R-right… I’m rolling to the rescue!” Cody laughed nervously in spite of himself and held up the scout tool slightly, “I mean, c'mon, do you really think **_this_** could do that much damage to something like you?”

The Cybertronian’s eyes shrank down again and rumbled something, but didn’t thrash in the slightest and allowed Cody to approach around side.

Exhaling shakily, Cody knelt down beside that twisted leg and the equally gnarled roots piercing through it. Close as he was now, it was clear just how severe these injuries were. The knee joint from the back-most leg was bent at an odd angle, and the pinned limb was breached through in at least three visible places. There was a faint trickling sound of fluid lazily pulsing out of the larger wounds from within the leg itself.

“Oh geez, this is worse than I thought.” Cody gulped.

The beast only snorted and tossed his head as though motioning for Cody to hurry up and get on with it already.

“Okay, okay… Just, don’t try to move after….” Cody worked the tip of his knife into a spot where the root clustered look fragile. It took a couple of re-jabs to get the angle right, but eventually he was able to hack away at a key knot and a large portion of the growth fell away. Elated, Cody set aside the knife momentarily and grabbed at two conjoined roots with his bare hands, and after re-working his stance, yanked them clean out.

The raptor gave a roar as its earthy chains came away, springing onto its haunches, narrowly missing stabbing Cody on its own claws. Thrashing about, massive tail whipping around the chamber, it got as far as two steps before its broken knee gave out and it collapsed forward with a screech.

“I told you not to move around so much!” Cody scolded, scrambling to his knees and dashing to the creature’s side.

His concern earned him a teeth-bared growl which convinced the boy to back off a bit and return to leaning against the wall. The raptor, for his part, made two more unsuccessfully attempts to rise before violently falling forward, yowling in a rage. Its injuries hissed at the exertion and more foul liquid splattered the dirt.

Sighing, Cody huddled in on himself, pulling his knees up to his chin. The beast huffed, making a peculiar rattling sound with what seemed like its tongue beating against the roof of its mouth before finally laying still.

“Don’t worry. We’re going to get out of here.” Cody mumbled over his knees.

His companion paid him no attention. It was being oddly quiet again, perhaps it had limited its movements to conserve energy. But Cody felt slightly better talking, even if it was to an unresponsive partner, so he continued.

“My dad will find us. Even if my communicator is busted, Frankie knows where I was and she’s probably called him already. Dani’s out on patrol tonight, so she’ll be able to scout the area with Blades. If they don’t see this hole from the air, dad and Kade will probably bring all the Bots down to comb the forest. Boulder could probably use his radar to hear us, or Chase will just call out and we can guide them here by voice, or…”

His murmurings continued as the pair waited in the pit, the steady drip of water over the rocks marking the seconds. The beast was silent still. Its breathing slow and shallow, red eyes dim and looking straight ahead into the darkness. For a long time, there was nothing.

The temperature began to lower, or perhaps it was merely his natural adrenaline wearing off, but either way Cody shivered. To conserve body heat, he drew his coat collar up as high as he could, then firmly wrapped his arms around the front of his legs and sunk his bare face in front of his knees. The world around him was dark now, but he kept his eyes open

More time passed, the moon began to slide across the small slice of visible sky.

“I really want to go home…” Cody whispered into the grime of his slacks.

There was a screech of metal against rock. Cody’s eyes snapped to full size as he sprang out of his curled state. The raptor was on his feet now, towering and monstrous taking up nearly the whole cave with his girth as he tested weight on his haunches, tail weaving easily back and forth for balance.

In all the excitement, Cody took the briefest of time to notice that the sickening wounds which had mangled the beast’s legs were gone, as though they had never been there at all…

But there were precious few moments to think on the mechanics of that, because immediately the raptor lunged itself forward, and with a roar, transformed.

It was nothing like the Bots.

Their transformations felt simple, clean, and natural. They folded out gently into their vehicle forms and back again easily as putting on your shoes each morning. This beast’s body screamed as metal wrought against metal, legs folding backwards at odd angles while fangs and claws began looking like feet and hands. Cody, awestruck though he was, instinctively backed up against the boundaries of the pit as his heart hammered in his chest. After what seemed like hours, a figure with the vague shape of a man stood in the center of the chamber. He was massive in height and form, with great shoulders and long limbs. It possessed a helmeted head not unlike Optimus’, but a face containing none of the mech’s gentleness and wisdom, but rather a mouth full of horrifying teeth and those piercing red eyes.

For a few moments, the Cybertronian paused, seeming to take inventory of his body’s abilities; twisting his exposed bone-like wrists and clanking feet against the ground. His left eye, round and monocle-like, scanned a thin, red line; cutting through the dim of the pit. That fearsome head settled back to Cody, who’s breath hiked up into his throat.

Closing the distance between them, the beast easily reached out one long arm and hooked a sharp claw beneath Cody’s collar. Before he knew it, Cody’s feet had left the ground and he was being deftly hoisted onto a giant, metal shoulder. Now within very close distance of that mouth and those… teeth… Cody watched with panicked breath and the newly transformed being scowled and turned swiftly towards the pit walls.

Within seconds, they were scaling the slimy rocks and dirt. Over-sized limbs and clawed appendages rendered climbing a simple task. Cody merely gripped at his benefactor’s cold shoulders for dear life as they rose. The dark blue sky and twinkling stars bobbed closer, and closer, before breaking open into a spectacular vista as they cleared the lip of the pit and came to rest on the grass.

Cody, briefly marveling at their freedom, didn’t even notice the claw hooking his jacket again before unceremoniously plucking him off and depositing him on the grass. Coming to his senses, he looked fully and properly at his benefactor.

The Cybertronian stood at full height; he was massive in scale. Light beamed down upon a white and red frame as those bloody eyes gazed down with an unearthly intensity.

Cody shuddered before pulling himself up onto his feet, his rib cage vibrating as he braced himself, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. The beast merely continued to stare.

There was a creak and whirl of moving metal as the alien reached out a clawed hand forward and down towards Cody’s face. It was nearly longer than the boy’s arm from fingertip to elbow; curved, and wickedly sharp. Cody flinched and his legs locked. No hope of running now.

The claw came to hang before his forehead and Cody hissed between his teeth, scrunching his eyes shut. There was more light whirling and creaking, indicating movement from the Cybertronian, but Cody was too preoccupied with imaging what horrible things that claw could do to his eyeballs to ponder on that much.

He felt a firm pressure on his forehead from a thin, icy surface. Cody paused, then slowly opened his eyes, lips quivering. The flat of the back of the claw was pressed in-between his grimy bangs. Glowing red optics looked at him steadily, gauging reactions. The false, “monocle” eye operated independently, swinging over ground immediately around them and over Cody’s still trembling body.

Cody’s panicked, short breaths and the beasts’ own slow, snarling huffs were the only sound in the clearing of the forest. The silence was broken by a raw, croaking voice gnashing out of the creature’s mouth and over its many teeth.

“It’s… all right…”

Cody stilled, blinking up in shock at the figure. The claw on his forehead moved slightly, pushing at muck-covered hair, which cleared Cody’s field of vision somewhat.

“It’s all right.” The alien repeated, kneeling down on a silver, skeletal legs to push back the other side of Cody’s bangs.

Cody’s breath slowed and stilled as he looked up at the creature. It kept its claw against Cody’s head, pointed tips curled into its fist. The other hand bracing on its knee. There was no other movement.

Calmer now, Cody began to take proper breaths, in and out. He loosened his knees, standing up, but showing no signs of fleeing. The beast seemed pleased by this, tilting his head to the side and the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly. It wasn’t a proper smile, but it wasn’t anything less than basic approval.

Claws continued to rest cool and gentle against Cody’s forehead. The Cybertronian rattled a dark purple tongue across the top of his mouth with a guttural rasp.

“Good boy…”


End file.
